To love or let go?

There is a parable at the beginning of the book, “And the Mountains Echoed” written by one of my favorite authors Khaled Hosseini, that led me to reflect on how people rationalize both their past relationships and the prospects of parenthood, which I will summarize for you here.

The story is about a man named Baba Ayub who lived in a little village called Maidan Sabz in a distant time when divs and jinns and giants roamed the land. Maidan Sabz was described as a desolate place and Baba Ayub worked day and night toiling his fields to provide for his loving wife and five children — 3 sons and 2 daughters — of which the youngest went by the name of Qais and whom Baba Ayub privately considered to be his favorite. It was said that Qais wore a small cowbell around his neck as he was often prone to sleep walking and the bell would help prevent him from getting lost.

It was then told that there was a day when a div — a mystical creature that had horns that sprouted from its head and was covered by coarse black hair — came to Maidan Sabz. And during the time, the legend was that if a div came to your village, it only came seeking one child to be sacrificed by one family, or otherwise risk atonement with the div taking all of the children from the family instead.

It may already be a foregone conclusion by now that the div selected Baba Ayub and his five children leaving him to make the unthinkable choice deciding which one of his five children to sacrifice. And so, placed against this dilemma, Baba Ayub wrote the name of each of his children on to the face of five separate rocks and put them inside a burlap bag opting to select one at random, and thus leaving the fate of his children to the indiscriminate acts of chance rather than by the will of his own hand.

Yet to his dismay, the rock that he selected was the one that he secretly hoped against in his heart of hearts, as it revealed the name of his son Qais, the youngest of his five children and the one he privately favored most of all. So the div took the child from Baba Ayub and carried him back to his fort which was known to be in a very distant land far, far away from Maidan Sabz.

Several years passed and Baba Ayub fell into a deep depression from the grief of having to surrender his youngest and most favored child to the div. The guilt of his act tormented him to the very core and it came to the point where he simply stopped working and hardly ate. Until alas, Baby Ayub could not bear the pain any longer and so one morning — without the consent of his wife and children — he tied his scythe around his waist and stowed away all the meager scraps of bread he could carry and set off to find the div’s fort in an attempt to retrieve his long lost son.

The trek was long and arduous spanning a period of many, many days across a vast and rough landscape filled with barren desserts, treacherous valleys, and steep mountains. And finally, the day arrived where Baba Ayub reached the foot of the div’s fort and demanded that the div return his beloved son Qais or suffer the consequence of death at the blade of his very own scythe.

Of course, the div did not truly perceive Baba Ayub to be an imminent threat against his life for Baba Ayub’s appearance now was disheveled and his body had been very much weakened by the long and harsh journey from Maidan Sabz. The div could have easily dismissed Baby Ayub with a single swipe of his powerful hand — yet the div was intrigued by this man, and in fact even admitted to a sense of admiration for him, as he did not exude even a single ounce of fear in the face of certain death all for the sake of his long lost son.

So the div decided to reward Baba Ayub for his noble act of courage and led him along the corridors of his fort until they made their way to an enormous room. At the end of the room was a curtain, and the div instructed Baba Ayub to pull the curtains open. And what it revealed was a magnificent garden described to be more beautiful than anything Baba Ayub could have imagined in three lifetimes.

Yet the one thing that caught the attention of Baba Ayub was that there were children running around in the garden and it was certainly no mistake that his very own son Qais was among them, dressed in a beautiful white shirt and trousers, laughing happily with two other comrades. The div continued to explain to Baba Ayub that his son no longer remembered who he was and that this garden was his life now. Qais was now afforded the lifestyle that he would have never seen in Maidan Sabz; he would receive education in the arts and sciences, wear clothes made from the finest materials, and foster many great friendships along the way.

Thus, the div offered Baba Ayub a choice: the div would allow Baba Ayub to take his son back to Maidan Sabz but Qais would never be allowed to return to the fort or the enchanted garden. On the other hand, if Baba Ayub chose not take his son away, then Baba Ayub would also never be allowed to return to see his son forever. Yet again, Baba Ayub was faced with an unfathomable decision: either take his son away from an environment that he would never be able to provide back home in Maidan Sabz or leave the fort with the knowledge that he would never be able to see his son again.

So with as much deliberation as when he was deciding which of his five children to offer to the div, Baba Ayub ultimately made the decision to return to Maidan Sabz without his son Qais — for he knew that he could only provide him with the life of a peasant and he could not take such a promising life filled with luxury and opportunity away from his son for the sake of his own selfishness.

The div, acknowledging that Baba Ayub was a good father, gave him a potion and instructed him to drink it. When he returned to the village of Maidan Sabz, he forgot he ever had his son Qais — and this was the reward that the div gave to Baba Ayub for his selfless act: the mercy to erase all of his memories of Qais and the events that had transpired beforehand.

This parable resonated in two areas within my life: firstly, on how we rationalize our relationships, and secondly, on the prospects of raising children.

I think that within any healthy relationship, there is always an element of sacrifice. With that said, there is also a balancing act between maintaining your stance on a certain topic versus overcompensating your views in light of your partner’s opinion.

And as I have matured over the years, I have developed a much greater appreciation behind being more steadfast in my opinions. I have learned that the best relationships are the ones where two open yet independent individuals who share the same values foster a high degree of communication between each other with the aim of establishing a deeper understanding of a certain issue by assuming the stance of the other side. Of course, this is not to oversimplify the complexities of human relationships into a wide generic statement but to posit that conflicting viewpoints, in and of itself, is not necessarily bad in nature but one in which you can derive the best possible outcome by the process of deliberation.

I have experienced within my own past relationships, and also heard from other people’s experiences, where this element of sacrifice is taken to the extreme. And it is oftentimes seen at the twilight of a relationship, where one individual rationalizes the decision to end a relationship for the sake of the other person’s best interests:

It is these instances that I am reminded of Baba Ayub’s decision to sacrifice his own selfish desires and be reunited with Qais to allow his son the best life possible. And I can certainly understand how one would come to this conclusion in a relationship as there is naturally an underlying sentiment for the two people involved to desire the best outcome for one another. Yet where my opinion differs is within the notion of mutuality: if the decision to start a relationship is mutual, then surely the decision to end the relationship cannot be rationalized by only one side?

This is not to say that people cannot break up for varying reasons ranging from different value systems, overall compatibility issues, toxic or abusive situations, or for the most part an amalgamation of the aforementioned reasons. However the part that I disagree with is when the reason to end a relationship is solely as a result of one side making the decision for the other individual’s best interests, for which I can only retort by saying:

I am not a child.

I am entitled to my own decisions.

If one chooses to remain in a relationship — even in the face of diminishing prospects — then it is a result of their own prerogative. Of course, it goes without saying that it is important for both sides to communicate their concerns to the other party, but it is not the obligation of one side to make the decision on behalf of the other in the name of their best interests.

In recent years, I have posed the question to several friends or people that I know whom are in stable, long-term relationships on whether they want to raise children of their own. And more often than not, the answer has been no, with the most common response being rather intriguing to me:

This answer is interesting, because even as common as this view is among the people I have asked, it is something that has never crossed my mind.

I was fortunate enough that I grew up in an upper-middle class neighborhood albeit in a lower-middle class family. And although I never had any concerns whether there would be food for dinner on any particular night, I was certainly cognizant to the fact that our financial means were not unlimited. Yet, as I reflect back on my childhood now, I must admit that it was overall a happy one. Of course I may not have had some of the privileges that some of my other friends had — such as traveling around the world to exotic destinations — but I did have plenty opportunities of my own and several come to mind that have had a lasting impact on my life that did not require a vast amount of financial resources.

I can certainly appreciate that one’s financial circumstances may be a legitimate concern in determining whether it is the right time to raise your own children but I would not say that it is reason enough that it supersedes all of the benefits of having children, including the prospect of raising a kid together with the person that you love, or building a family of your own.

So in this respect, I had to ask myself: If I were Baba Ayub’s situation, would I also leave my son Qais and return to Maidan Sabz alone? I could have just as easily justified to myself that I would want to keep my family together at all costs— that this would be of utmost importance — and that we could deal with any of life’s obstacles together as one family. In my mind, the counterargument I have is that the cost of sacrificing my relationship with my son in order to provide a better lifestyle for him would be too great. Or put differently, if my son ultimately lives a great life but has no recollection of where he came from or how he got there, then what is the whole point?

But alas, I believe I will never understand Baba Ayub’s thought process, unless of course, that I one day experience having a child of my own.

Perhaps you are curious as to how Baba Ayub lived out the remainder of his life. Well the story goes on to say that the following Spring after Baba Ayub returned to Maidan Sabz, the town experienced a great rainfall. The desolate terrain that had characterized the village’s landscape for so many years turned into a lush environment and everyone rejoiced in their sudden change of fortunes. As for Baba Ayub, he went on to produce the most bountiful crop of pistachios of his life during that fall, and for the following years, his crops continued to grow in both size and quality. Baba Ayub went on to live to be a very old man and watched all four of his children get married, who in turn, produced children of their own that brought Baba Ayub great happiness.

Yet, the story goes that on some nights — for no particular reason — Baba Ayub could not sleep. It was during these nights that he reflected on his long life and felt gratitude for all the bounty and joy that he had experienced. And every once in a while, as he drifted alone in the darkness, he would think that he may have heard the small jingle of a bell — but of course he told himself that there was no such thing as all the sheep and goats were already fast asleep in the barn.

And thus, there is certainly great truth in what the div had told Baba Ayub all those years ago in his fort:

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